Conscience
by Rough Rider
Summary: Agent 47 finds himself on the verge of a nervous breakdown after a hit goes wrong. Has the job finally got to him? Complete.


HITMAN CODENAME 47:

CONSCIENCE

The blistering heat of the mid-day sun bore down on my exposed head like a blow-torch. My hands were shaking violently and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get them to settle. The vibration was beginning to make my stomach turn, and I could feel my mouth filling up with saliva quicker than I could swallow it.

What the Hell had gone wrong?

The china mans head had been positioned perfectly between the cross-hairs of My rifle. When I pulled the trigger his head should have been history.

Instead, when I pulled the trigger, the bullet had hit one of his body guards standing behind him. Needless to say the explosive sound of the first shot had raised the alarm and my target was soon making a sprint towards his car, surrounded by more of his guards.

There was no way I could chance taking another shot. The barrel of my rifle had obviously been tampered with and I would have more than likely took out an innocent civilian enjoying the peaceful surroundings of spirit park.

The taking of innocent life's with out good reason was something the agency did not tolerate, and its retribution was swift with the contract assassin being removed permanently by another of the Agency's' hired guns. The only other situation which would merit such a swift response, would be the loss of a target which had been clearly in sight.

As I watched Sun Yun Ping escape into the safety of his bullet proof limousine I knew I would face such a fate.

My head was beginning to ache now as My mind raced to find a solution to this problem, plus there was other thoughts playing in the background. One of which was who had tampered with the barrel of my sniper rifle?

That was a question which I knew would have to be left unanswered for the time being. My priority was to reacquire my target and finish what I had been paid to do.

Easier said than done. Sun Yun was now spooked. He now knew he had someone on his trail and would most likely go to great lengths to protect and hide himself. I had no other option but to try and find him though.

Diane from the Agency would be contacting me in less than two hours, and if I had to tell her that the target, which was currently worth four million dollars in contract fees, was still breathing...

...Well I might as well take the silenced Baller from its holster and do the deed myself. It was a sobering thought. I would become the hunted rather than the hunter and just like any one of My previous contracts, I did not relish the thought of taking a bullet to the head.

When I looked down at my hands I noticed that, for the time being, they had stopped shaking. My nerves were strung out to their very ends, and had been that way ever since I landed in Hong Kong. The reason why I felt like this was unclear, though I think deep down I knew this job was becoming just too much for My mind to take.

It was refusing to let go. I couldn't close my eyes for any longer than a minute without being reminded of the people I had executed because of the bounty on their heads.

I used to think that I had no conscience. That I was invulnerable to the thoughts and feelings that separated me from the rest of the human race, just like the bar code etched into the back of my head. As I pushed myself up off the veranda floor and swiped the dust from my black suit, I remembered Diane telling me that a conscience in this line of work was a very big liability.

She was right. And with the successful completion of each new contract mine seemed to be growing larger, almost to the point were I felt like it was going to consume me.

As i looked up at the clear blue sky, the sound of an approaching police helicopter; which was undoubtedly making its way to the scene of my botched assassination attempt, filled the air. I watched as it started off as nothing more than a speck in the distance, and then rising above the skyline and the smog to become clearer in my view.

It was indeed heading in my direction. I glanced over the veranda railing, and down at the small inner city park which seemed to be dotted around Hong Kong every four blocks. A few feet from the band-stand I could see the body of the dead guard sprawled on the floor, a pool of crimson red blood had formed around his head were the bullet had struck. Surrounding the unfortunate bodyguard was a small collection of local people, who looked to be mostly elderly and probably spent the largest part of their day lounging around on the park benches.

The very same people seemed to act like a homing beacon for the helicopter as it circled the area a couple of times before its passenger pointed to the park below. As I watched the cop riding shotgun in the helicopter, I saw him pick up the handset of the in-built radio, and then his lips moving silently as he reported back what he was seeing.

This was not good.

The Hong Kong police force wasn't particularly large compared to some other major cities, but they were swift. I guessed within the next fifteen minutes the streets below would be swarming with cops, all eager to make a name for themselves and hopefully earn a promotion for the killers capture.

Just as I was about to make a swift exit from the hotel room I was currently renting, I noticed the police chopper turn to face north and at first I couldn't understand why. Then I saw the black smoke billowing up from the ground, again the passenger cop reached for his radio, this time to call the fire department no doubt.

I felt myself starting to become transfixed with that thick, black smoke rising up from the ground like an evil gods soul. Something inside me told me I should head in that direction. I couldn't understand why, but my gut instinct was telling me that that smoke had something to do with Sun Yun.

Maybe there was still a chance for me to reacquire my target after all?

Deciding not to waste anymore time I ran to the room door and burst out into the hallway. As I sprinted for the staircase I realized how suspicious I was going to look running away from the scene of the crime but I was just going to have to take my chances.

It took me less than two minutes to reach the foyer of the Tsun Mang hotel. The young woman, who had been behind the front desk for the full three days I had spent in the building, was nowhere to be seen which suited me just fine.

Fewer witnesses the better.

I was almost blinded by the sun as I crashed through the double doors marking the entrance to the hotel, and I stumbled down the few short steps, almost falling to my hands and knees.

Taking a few seconds to catch my breath and recompose Myself, I glanced up at the sky. The police chopper was still facing in the direction of the smoke and in the distance I could hear the familiar wailing of police sirens.

I had to keep moving.

The whole area would soon be covered with the local law enforcement. It wouldn't take them long to figure out were the shot was fired from. It would take them even less time to search My hotel room and get a good description of me from the girl working the front desk. Then I would have an entire city of law givers looking for me.

There was no way I could let that happen.

As I raced across the road, covering myself with the wall which closed the park off from the rest of the street, I decided that if the smoke didn't lead me to Sun Yun then I would head straight for the airport and get as far away from the Chinese authorities as possible.

Picking up the pace, I quickly made it to the end of the street. Across the road I could see an alley-way separating two ancient looking apartment blocks from each other, which would offer excellent cover from the chopper.

Once I made it into the alley, the stench which drifted up with the steam from the sewer gratings was over-powering and if I hadn't been moving at the speed I was I was sure I would have puked.

The dumpsters and trash cans inside the alley were over-flowing and some had spilled their contents, making my sprint a little more treacherous. I noticed a couple of fat rats munching on what looked like noodles as I cleared the first alley and continued into the next one, which also had a vermin problem.

I must have been running for almost three minutes when I reached the fourth alley. My lungs were burning and my stomach was still unsettled from the poisonous sewage odour which drifted upwards from every available outlet.

When I looked I could see wisps of black smoke from the road ahead. Spurred on by that sight I broke into an all out sprint, and within a few short seconds I was out in the road and I found that my luck and my gut instinct hadn't yet, completely abandoned me.

In-front of me was the cause of the black smoke. A red and white garbage truck had been trying to make a U-turn in the narrow road when Sun yun's Limo had came screeching round the corner. The six wheeler was now resting on just three of its rims as the black limo had struck it so hard it wedged itself underneath it.

Judging by the look of the carnage in front of me I seriously doubted there would be any survivors. But to my surprise I heard a clunk and then the rear door of the limo swung open. A cloud of gray smoke quickly escaped from the inside of the car, and that was followed by a pair of legs, which cautiously felt for the ground before the rest of the body began to push its way out of the wreckage.

Sun Yun's brown suit was spattered with the blood which dripped from various cuts on his face and hands. He coughed uncontrollably as he staggered away from the remains of the limo. I couldn't hear or see any other movement coming from the car so I guessed his guards were now on their way to the big dojo in the sky.

Just to be on the safe side, as I cautiously walked towards the wreckage, I un-holstered the silenced baller and tightened my grip around the butt. Yun hadn't yet noticed my presence and I watched him stagger over to the nearest wall were he tried to catch his breath.

Switching my gaze to the limo I could hear him wretch a couple of times and then spew up the expensive meal I had watched him eat at the Jaded Dragon restaurant just a few hours earlier. A meal that he paid for with the money he was supposed to be laundering for the red triangle triad gang.

The leader of the gang had arranged to meet him at Spirit park to discuss his future employment. Obviously that had just been a rouse to get him there alone were I was supposed to retire him.

That hadn't gone to plan, but the main objective would at least still be completed.

A quick glance inside the limo told me I had no need to worry about yun's guards getting in the way of any more of My bullets. The inside of the car was a bloody mess. The drivers head lay in the passenger seat while his smoldering body was slumped over the wheel. The guard sitting nearest to Yun had been thrown forward between the seats and his head had been partially buried in the dashboard, while the remaining guard near the door was also slumped forward, his now detached arm trapped in the small space between the head rest of the front seat.

The sound of the police sirens was being matched by the equally high pitched whine of ambulance and fire truck sirens. They were getting closer so I knew I had to be quick with Mr. Ping.

Walking away from the limousine I leveled the barrel of the baller at Yun's head. When he eventually stopped coughing, he turned towards me and frowned. At first it looked like he couldn't understand why I would be pointing a gun at his head, and then as it slowly sank in that his siphoning of triad money was about to bring his demise, his eyes shot open in fear.

He raised his hands as if to surrender, and started to say something in Cantonese. However, as I got closer, and he realized I wasn't one of his fellow country men, he quickly switched to English.

'Please don't kill me.' his accent was thick and just comprehensible. 'Please...I have a family...a wife and three children...'

I watched as he reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. For a moment I thought he was going for a gun and I tightened my grip around the trigger of the baller. The first flash of metal I saw would be his end.

What he produced instead though was a small Polaroid photograph. He held it out to me, beckoning for me to take it. I moved closer until I was an arms length away from him and I plucked the picture out of his hand. A hand that was trembling almost as bad as mine had been a few minutes ago.

The Polariod showed Yun and his tired but happy looking wife standing behind their three, smiling kids. Two of which were boys and the third a girl who looked very much like her mother.

'You see...I am...family man.' He continued.

Compared to what I was, Yun was not an evil man. Just a very greedy one. As I looked at his family photograph which had obviously been posed for, I had two options open to me:

I could let him walk away and he would live for maybe a few days before the red triangle leader eventually sent his own men to hunt him down and do what they were paying me to do. That would in turn leave me with the problem of dealing with the Agency and whoever they would send to retire me.

My second option was the most obvious and straight cut. I do what I've been hired to do and put a bullet in his head. But as I looked at the picture I could feel a pang of guilt. I really didn't want his face joining the rest that haunted Me late at night.

I turned my gaze back to him and he was watching me, his expression was hopeful. Handing him his picture back I pointed with my empty hand to the bottom of the road and said:

'Start walking and don't look back. If you look back I will kill you.'

At first he seemed unsure if I was serious, but as he looked at the expression on my face, he must have got the hint and a little unsteadily he began to walk away from me.

Not once did he look back.

If he had, he would have saw me level the Baller at his left leg. I let him walk a few feet away before pulling the trigger. He let out a scream as the bullet punched its way through his leg, just above the knee. Switching my aim to his right leg I pulled the trigger again, and again he screamed as the bullet ripped through it's target.

I began walking towards him as he dropped to the tarmac and curled up into the fetal position. His face was red and he was trying to scream but the pain was so intense his body wasn't allowing any air to escape from his lungs.

Once I was standing over him I swiftly trained the baller on his head. I gave a thought to his wife and kids and how they would survive, then I pulled the trigger. Twice.

Conscience or not, My job is to kill. The ghosts of the past will probably continue to haunt Me for years, and Yun will no doubt be one of them.

Maybe in years to come, when my time has came to an end, they will be able to extract their own revenge on me. Maybe then they will be able to do to me what I did to them.

Until then though, they would just have to remain in the darkness of my mind.

THE END


End file.
